Sell Your Home Better. Tell a Story

Design and Stage Your Home For A Sale:

Your Charleston home has been where you’ve lived your dreams, raised your family, and created endless experiences. A home contains a collection of memories from births, birthdays, vacations, hobbies, schools, and loves. We place these mementos on a mantel piece, the walls, a coffee table, bookcases, and shelves. When it is time to sell your home, staging the property will help to provide a “story line” for potential buyers to read. In a way, it will be a selling point for your house. Here’s how to do it:

by Richard Bubnowski Design LLC

Keep Your Story Simple:

Your home’s story is told not only through pictures or your book collection, but also through your choice of furniture. Simple details leave a story of who you are and what your home is capable of. It’s just a matter of having it resonate with the average home buyer.

Sellers need to show how spacious their living room can be, how an awkward or a small space can be used to show more germaneness. It’s the little things that help to sell the story of your house, which helps to peak a buyer’s interest. When selling your home it is best to create a clean and appealing appearance, but with just enough of your self left in the home.

If you have too much detail on your walls or on your tables, it will distract potential buyers. Buyers want to envision their own memories, designs, family and friends within your walls. People are slowly moving away from putting a lot of energy and money into repairing a home to sell. Instead, Charleston sellers are using simple home décor tips to make the house more appealing and any changes can easily be substituted.

Story Line Your Rooms:

A simple “story” you might come across in the Charleston area is the beach. A lot of families will hang photos of them building sandcastles. Others will have paintings of South Carolina’s famous palmettos. Other attributes you might find are surf board racks in the garage or outdoor showers (to rinse off the sand). All these characteristics build up a story that a buyer might be interested in. Moving to Charleston for the beach/water is a common theme, but then again, this is just an example to work from.

A lot of agents will say: “Use neutral colors like white,” but it doesn’t mean you have to leave things bland. For the Charleston area, especially around Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island, you can add in some seashell decorations or earthy elements. Maximizing natural light is also a plus. Home buyers love the local weather and want to enjoy it, so show them it!

For children’s rooms, remove excess toys and keep the coloring scheme light. Let potential buyers know that if they don’t have a child or children, then this room can be used as an office or an entertainment room. For the bathroom, remove personal toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair accessories, and instead utilize personal products that are unique or fresh, simple-colored towels that can be matched to a shower curtain. Suppose you enjoy growing indoor flowers in a sunny room — this staging can remain because potential buyers can envision also growing indoor Charleston organic herbs, maybe even a specific vegetable.

The Home Story Ends:

A story has a beginning, middle and ending. Selling a home with a story line has the beginning, which is the curbside appeal. If the address numbers are dull looking, replace them with bright, brass numbers or polish them. Charleston residents enjoy hedges and plants close to the home, but a home looks better with low cut greenery. Trim and edge the lawn, and consider placing garden stone barriers or decorative white fences around flower beds. Pressure wash the house, the driveway, as well as seal any cracks in sidewalks or driveway. The middle story line is the interior, where you can use the suggestions as mentioned above. And the ending story line is the actual sale of your home.

What a story does is convince the buyer that they must have your house — that they want to live this story.

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Real estate listing marked with the CTMLS logo or an abbreviated logo are provided courtesy of the Charleston Trident MLS Broker Reciprocity Database. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed. IDX information is provided exclusively for consumers' personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing. Data last updated 2017-09-26T17:35:59.11.